• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9
• 10

Upon finishing a Graduate Theater Degree at the University of Southern California, John Siciliano is ready to take Hollywood by storm, certain that having one leg won’t affect his success.  He has written and performed in a full-length play for the past two years in New York, and is ready to start getting serious parts in the film industry. 

His agent calls, “I have an audition for you,” she says.  John is beyond excited, “what is it?!”  “It’s an episode of ER.”  John immediately pictures himself in the role of a young doctor, paramedic, maybe a romantic lead.  “What’s the part?”

“Crazy one-legged homeless guy.”

John, upset, calls a friend in the business.  She tells him, “Wesley Snipes had to play drug dealers for years before he could get any other parts.  You’re an actor, act.”  Refreshed and resolved, John prepares for the audition.  He buys a dirty wig, puts on dingy clothes, colors his teeth to a rotten yellow and sets off for the audition.  One thing he lacks is grimy shoes, so he grabs a pair of old Nikes.  Upon reaching the Warner Brothers Studio, he’s suprised to see the twenty-five one-legged homeless guys who appear before him.  He gets in his corner, focuses, prepares himself for the task at hand: being the best damn crazy one-legged homeless guy he can be. 

Walking into the studio, he sees the writer, producer, and director.  He does his best able-bodied walk into the room.  Brows furrow at the sight of this seemingly two-legged, nice shoe-wearing man.  “Those are pretty fancy shoes for a homeless guy,” the director says.  John turns to him, “Sorry, but my expensive shoes are $25,000 a pop! Prosthetic leg will not be auditioning.”  He sets his leg and shoes off to the side.  Their shock is palpable.  He does his crazy homeless guy bit, drooling and yelling.  As he comes out of his actor’s trance, they are applauding his read. 

“I’ve got to put my leg back on, excuse me.”  John starts to undo his pants.  “Whoa, no one has taken their pants off for a part in years,” says John Levey.  So John gives a little shake and dance, earning him two episodes on ER.  

John Siciliano had his accident in June of 1993.  He had just completed his sophomore year at Point Park College, where he was earning a double degree in Theater and Journalism.  A star soccer player and successful student actor, he was a rare breed of jock/drama club guy.  The night of his accident, he was a passenger in a car en route from the bars to a diner.  The warm summer Pittsburgh breeze swirled around John and his friends through the top and sides of the open Jeep.  Suddenly, John heard the loudest CRUNCH!  he’d ever heard.  Looking up, he saw two demolished jeeps wrapped around each other.  His first instinct was to run from the potential explosion.  As he got up, he tried to run and collapsed.  He looked down and saw for the first time that his leg had been mangled beyond recognition.

John describes the sight of his family coming into the hospital room as “The Night of the Living Dead.”  He could feel the tension and felt so much pity for his family that the only thing he could say was, “Don’t worry, I’ll never give up.”  The next two weeks, John was surrounded by the people from his small town.  He kept hitting the snooze button on his grief.  Finally, the day of his sister’s Fourth of July party had arrived.  Left alone at the hospital, he got out of his chair and looked at himself in the mirror.  He saw someone he didn’t recognize, someone scarily skinny, someone who was ugly and wouldn’t get the girls, someone who wouldn’t realize his dreams.  And he lost it.  Finally. 

The next day, he began finding a path back to the life he had loved when he met his physical therapist.  The therapist gave him a Paralympics brochure that showed an athlete, who also had had his leg amputated above the knee, running track.  Surrounded as he was in a rehab hospital by much older people, this seemed a distant reality to John.  But he put it by his bed, never losing the thought that “maybe one day that could be me.” 

John made the most out of his rehab, grabbing every opportunity to strengthen both his body and his resolve.  When he got home to his sister’s, he sat on the back porch and took in the sky and the forest and reflected on his life, “I was looking at things differently, I was so appreciative of my life and I realized that I was racing through it.”

After another month and a half on crutches, John was more than ready to get his first prosthetic leg.  With this leg he could walk, run, participate in everyday activities.  When the prosthetist revealed the leg, however, John balked.“Are you kidding me?!  This leg has pantyhose on it!  I want the one in the brochure!”  But without medical insurance, the ancient, cumbersome prosthesis would, for the time being, be the best he could get.

John was determined to run competitively, but to do so he needed a flex-foot to run.  He got out his Paralympics brochure and called Endolite, the prosthetic company who’d made the athlete’s leg, and asked them to please have Todd Schaffhauser, the Paralympian in their brochure, call him.  When Todd called John back one month later, John was beside himself with frustration.  Todd agreed to meet at a track in Long Island, where John received a demonstration of Todd’s running abilities.  When Todd invited John to run, the best John could do was to hop along with a ka-lunk, ka-lunk of his heavy prosthetic.  Todd, seeing John’s eagerness to learn and improve, invited him to an amputee running clinic in Massachusetts. 

A month later in Springfield, John met David Balsley, a physical therapist and an amputee running trainer.  He was also introduced to Mike Joyce, a prosthetist.  Both David and Mike would change John’s life.  They saw his dedication and hard work and pulled him aside.  The following year was to be a Paralympic year.  They invited John to move to New York for the next year to work with Mike and David where he could train and, most importantly, get a running leg.

 About two months later, John shows up at his first track meet.  It is clear from his baggy, knee-length soccer shorts that he is a rookie.  He crouches down into the blocks, looks over, and sees Todd Schaffhauser beside him.  The gun goes off and all he sees is Todd’s back.  John needs to come in under 17.5 seconds to qualify.  He crosses at 17.44. 

By the end of the summer of training, John was once again a strong and competitive athlete.  But he was missing a major part of his life: theater.  He decided to go back to school and train at the same time.  Upon returning to the theater department, he accepted the supporting role of Borachio in “Much Ado About Nothing,” in which he played a soldier returning from war.  Recognizing a great casting opportunity, John’s theater professor  decided, “Why can’t Borachio be a one-legged character?  We don’t even have to talk about it; it will just be part of his persona.”  So John called up his prosthetician: “I need an 18th century leg please.”  For his performance in “Much Ado About Nothing,” John received the prestigious Irene Ryan Award.  This was a turning point in his life, as John realized that all of his dreams were, in fact, still possible: he was proving to himself and others that he could be an amazing athlete, an accomplished actor, an an active participant in life.  All with one leg. 

Following the play, John goes to the Paralympic trials.  He’s ready.  He gets down into the blocks, looks over, sees Todd.  No one has beaten Todd in 8 years.  Seventy-five meters down, John’s prosthetic flies off, this race is over for him.  He has one more chance to qualify in the 200 meter dash, but he has to get first place to go on to the Paralympics.  150 meters into the race, John is winning, but his leg is starting to loosen again.  He squeezes and tries to rock it back in place, but as he’s crossing the finish line, Todd is on him.  John dives over the finish line, beating Todd by 0.2 seconds as well as the U.S. National record. 

Winning that race opened doors for John.  Sponsors came to him and vied to provide his prosthetics.  He was expected to medal at the Paralympics.  In the Olympic stadium, John prepared to run the 200 meter dash.  He crouched down, the gun went off, and he was out of the blocks.  But once again, his leg began to loosen and rock.  He kept going until halfway to the finish line, his leg flew off and he crashed to the ground.  With his coach’s mantra of “never quit’ in his head, John got back up, regained his balance, and hopped the last 90 meters across the finish line.  The stadium crowd was beside themselves.  This triumph of the human spirit is what the Paralympics are all about. 

Right now, John has achieved a perfect balance in his life: Hollywood, prosthetics, and public speaking.  He’s always loved acting: breaking down characters, finding emotions in his own life to draw on to make a character great.  But Hollywood can be a selfish place, so John deals with that by giving back.  He speaks and now works for Endolite, the prosthetic company he called to meet Todd.  “I’m so lucky, I have a great balance in my life.”

John credits his achievements to his mother.  Although he lost his mother at age 9, he still feels like she’s always with him. “I never truly feel alone, she is always there for me.  Through all of those crazy accidents and near-death experiences, she’s my little angel up there making sure I’m safe.  I think she’s proud looking down at me and at my accomplishments.”

John’s advice for someone right after they’re injured is this: “Everyone’s going to handle it in their own way.  It’s okay and necessary to hit bottom.  Just don’t stay there.  Realize that yes, this is the worst day, but tomorrow doesn’t have to be like that.  Think of all you have going for you and know there are resources and people who will help you.  Get a mentor, get support.  There are resources out there—utilize them.”